Читать книгу The Prophet Ezekiel: An Analytical Exposition - Arno Clemens Gaebelein - Страница 15

II. The second Judgment Message. The End is at Hand. The Complete Judgment.

The seventh chapter which contains the second judgment message, closes the first prophecy of Ezekiel. All the different elements and phases of judgment which had just been foretold by the Prophet are now gathered up in this final great utterance. As the chapter is written in a certain rythm and contains in the authorized version many incorrect renderings, we give a corrected metrical translation.

"And the Word of Jehovah came unto me, saying, And thou Son of Man, thus saith Jehovah unto the land of Israel:

An end cometh! The end

Upon the four corners of the land.

Now cometh the end upon thee

And I will send mine anger upon thee,

And I will judge thee according to thy ways;

And I will bring upon thee all thine abominations.

And mine eyes shall not spare thee,

Neither will I have pity;

Because I will bring thy ways upon thee

And thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee:

And ye shall know that I am Jehovah.

Thus saith the Lord Jehovah!

An evil—an only evil!—behold it cometh.[8] An end is come—the end is come! It awaketh against thee. Behold it cometh! O inhabitant of the land, thy doom is come unto thee The set time is come, the day is near, The day of tumult. And not the joyous shouting upon the mountains; Now will I soon pour out my fury upon thee And accomplish mine anger against thee. I will judge thee according to thy ways, And will bring upon thee all thine abominations. Mine eye shall not spare, neither will I have pity. According to thy ways will I render unto thee, And thine abominations shall be in the midst of thee, And ye shall know that I am Jehovah, who smiteth (chapter vii:1-9).

This is the first section of this great and solemn portion of Ezekiel's prophecy. The end is announced to come upon the entire land. The set time for judgment had come, it could no longer be averted. How merciful had been Jehovah's dealing with His beloved people. "But He, being full of compassion, forgave their iniquity, and destroyed them not; yea many a time turned He His anger away, and did not stir up all His wrath" (Ps. lxxviii:38). But now the measure of their wickedness had come. The day of reckoning was at hand. Divine fury was to sweep now over the entire land. His eyes would no longer spare nor would He pity them any longer.

There is another day coming in which the Lord will deal in fearful judgments with this earth. Now is the day of salvation in which God speaks in love through His Son. When wickedness and apostasy has reached its climax, the day of salvation will end and "the day of vengeance of our God" will begin. Then He will speak in His wrath and vex them in His sore displeasure (Ps. ii:5). Then will they say to the mountains and rocks, "Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of His wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" (Rev. vi:16-17). God's judgments for the future are as sure as were His judgments in the past. There is a set time, the day of the Lord, when He, to whom the Father has given all judgments, will tread "the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of God, the Almighty" (Rev. xix:15).

Behold the Day! Behold it cometh!

Thy doom advanceth:

The rod hath blossomed, pride hath budded.

Violence has risen up into a rod of wickedness;

None of them shall remain; yea none of their multitude,

Nor their wealth; neither shall there be eminency among them.

The time is come, the day draweth near;

Let not the buyer rejoice, nor the seller mourn,

For wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

For the seller shall not return to that which is sold,

Even though he were yet amongst the living.

In the vision touching the whole multitude thereof

It shall not be revoked;

And none shall through his iniquity assure his life.

They have blown the trumpet and made all ready,

But none goeth to the battle;

For my wrath is upon all the multitude thereof.

The sword is without; the pestilence and the famine within;

He that is in the field shall die by the sword;

And he that is in the city, famine and pestilence shall devour him.

But they that escape of them shall escape,

And be as the mountains like moaning doves,

All of them mourning, every one for his iniquity.

All hands shall be feeble, and every knee shall fail like water.

They shall gird themselves with sackcloth,

And horror shall cover them;

Shame shall be upon all faces, baldness upon all heads (verses 10-18).

What a solemn description of the doom which was now to fall upon Jerusalem, the land and its inhabitants! The buyer and the seller as well as all the multitude were to be affected by it. The decree of judgment which had gone forth could not be revoked. The blowing of the trumpet, which is mentioned has generally been misunderstood by expositors. It is said to picture "the collapse of Judah's military preparations in the hour of danger, that when the siege of Jerusalem came, none responded." The blowing of the trumpets among Israel had a special significance. It carried with it the assurance that Jehovah heard and would be ready to fight for His people against their enemies. But as they knew their iniquities had separated them from God, His face being against them, none did go to the battle, for His wrath rested upon them all. Sword, pestilence and famine would devour them all and the few fugitives would be upon the mountains mourning over their iniquities. The rod mentioned which hath blossomed means Nebuchadnezzar, who executed this great judgment upon Jerusalem. The climax of the judgment prophecy is reached in the third part of the chapter.

They shall cast their silver in the streets,

And their gold shall be as an unclean thing;

Their silver and their gold shall not be able to deliver them

In the day of Jehovah's wrath;

They cannot satisfy their souls, neither fill their bowls,

Because it was the stumbling block of their iniquity.

And the beauty of their ornaments, they turned it to pride,

And the images of their abominations, their detestable things made they of it.

And I shall give it to the hands of strangers for a prey,

And to the wicked of the earth for a spoil; and they shall profane it.

For I will turn my face from them,

And they shall defile my secret place,

And robbers shall enter into it and profane it.

Form a chain,

For the land is full of bloody crimes,

And the city full of violence.

Therefore will I bring the worst of the nations,

And they shall possess their houses;

And I will make the pride of the mighty to cease,

And their sanctuaries shall be defiled.

Destruction cometh!

They shall seek peace, but there shall be none.

Calamity after calamity shall appear;

And rumour shall be upon rumour;

Then shall they seek a vision from a prophet;

But the law shall perish from the priest,

And counsel from the elders.

The king shall mourn, and the prince shall be clothed with dismay,

And the hands of the people of the land shall tremble:

I will do unto them according to their way,

When I shall judge them according to their deserts;

And they shall know that I am the Lord (verses 19-27).

Here we learn first of all that the stumbling block of their iniquity (verse 19) was the silver and gold. Prophets like Isaiah, Amos and others bear witness to the fact that Jerusalem and the land enjoyed great prosperity and indulged in extravagant living before the judgment overtook the nation. Said Isaiah, "Their land also is full of silver and gold, neither is there an end of their treasures." In the third chapter of Isaiah the luxurious dress of the daughters of Zion is vividly described, while Amos also gives the scenes of their riotous, wanton living and emphasizes the oppression of the poor. Riches had increased and the prosperous conditions of the land produced vanity; they forgot Jehovah and worshipped the idols of the Gentiles. And now as the day of wrath breaks, their eyes would be opened and they were to find out the absolute worthlessness of their silver and gold. They would cast it into the streets, for it was unable to deliver them. Zephaniah, in his great vision of the national calamity which was to fall upon the people, gives a similar testimony. "Neither their silver nor their gold shall be able to deliver them in the day of the Lord's wrath; but the whole land shall be devoured by the fire of His jealousy; for He shall make even a speedy riddance of all them that dwell in the land" (Zeph. i:18).

The Holy Spirit bears witness in the New Testament that similar conditions will exist in Christendom during the end of the present age. "Men shall be lovers of their ownselves, lovers of money (covetous) and lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God" (2 Tim. iii:1-5). The conditions of worldliness, apostasy, prosperity and luxurious living which prevailed in Jerusalem before the hand of God stripped the people and the land characterize our times. This will go on, and will culminate after the Lord has taken His true church into glory. In view of the visible coming of the Lord to deal with the earth in judgment the Spirit of God through James addresses especially the rich men. "Go to now, ye rich men, weep and howl for your miseries that shall come upon you.... Ye have heaped treasure together for the last days" (James v:1-3).

The message of Ezekiel also announced that the Gentiles, the strangers, were to come and defile the temple. The chain mentioned refers to their condition as captives. Destruction was to come. There should be no peace; calamity was to follow calamity; according to what they had done a righteous God would deal with them. And thus it came to pass when Jerusalem fell and the people were taken away as captives.